Syndicated Comics and the death of Quality

simpleton lampoons the nadir of American culture, the syndicated serial comic zombie. The original creators are either long since dead or for some other reason without a soul, these morbid half-rotten carrion-ridden walking corpses of the comics that were bad when they were alive are now both terrifying and evil.

In fact, Mary Worth is one of several comics towards which I feel such antipathy as to generally consider even discussions about them to be verboten.

I generally put all comics like this under the heading of "Apartment 4G" as in "I decry the Apartment-4Gification of Luanne and Foxtrot." Somehow the word "apartment" lets me deal with this issue in isolation.

However, having read this article by simpleton, I may recoin the phrase.

It reminds me of somthing my daughter said:

"Daddy, I smell something. Its coming from behind the radio. Its a monster! He has a kitchen in his tummy and we have to get nets to catch him. But we don't have any nets. I know! We can get them at the grocery store, that's a good idea. Then we can catch the monster and his face will turn into a rocketship and he will say RRRRRROOOOARRRRR!!!"

If I Mary Worthified this story, it would take the better part of 15 years to tell it.

Entry #100

As self-flattering the thought of being a prosecutor may be, I fear that it is abit like when The Punisher Meets Archie. Maybe I will feel better after the exam.

My parody of Milorad Pavic's writing

Every so many years I wonder about the different versions of the Dictionary of the Khazars before I succumb to the curiosity and pull it off the shelf again so that I may have something to read on the can. It is a small room painted blue with a small cage full of National Geographics. When I close my eyes, the pictures in the magazine take me away to someplace else. I am separated from the photographer who shot the photograph as the Pac-Man in the pie chart is separated from the two-thirds that he represents. Sometime I will read the book at the table in the living room. On the back of the book is a picture of a fly. They say that time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana. As, I blog these words centuries of electrons die - their souls shattered like a salt lick.

The face of criminal law

So that I can let this sink in, I will blog about how the sovereign decides what the face of criminal law will look like by defining the shape of it's features. This decision is not static, rather it is always in flux. This reflects the need the balance the need of society (the many) with the rights/freedoms of individuals and the beliefs about what is fair held by the people that make up society.

For example, one feature of criminal law is "given an adequate provocation, what sort of response is justified?" The standard of law seems to be that one may response as a reasonable person would. "Reasonable person" tends to become a very subjective standard, but which subjective factors are allowable and how many different definitions of "reasonable person" does that create?

In a large and diverse society, it may become difficult and possibly unfair to allow only one definition of a "reasonable person" or to give no instruction as to what subjective factors are allowable. One the other hand, to permit too many subjective factors may become arbitrary and is possibly divisive to society. The model penal code gives purposely vague language here and the commentary makes it clear that the authors leave it up to the jurisdiction to decide which factors are allowable and for what situations. Jurisdictions take this up through statutes, judicial precedents, jury instructions, and all the other means that society has for determining the shape of certain features of the law.

Would an adequate jury instruction be: "Was the defendant's response to being assaulted reasonable?"
How about: "Was the defendant's response to being assaulted reasonable given her age?"
How about: "Was the defendant's response to being assaulted reasonable given her age and her status as a battered woman?"
How about: "Was the defendant's response to being assaulted reasonable given her age and her status as a battered gay woman?"
How about: "Was the defendant's response to being assaulted reasonable given her age and her status as a battered gay woman from Yonkers?"
How about: "Was the defendant's response to being assaulted reasonable given her age and her status as a battered gay female Unitarian from Yonkers?"
How about: "Was the defendant's response to being assaulted reasonable given her age and her status as a battered gay female Unitarian haberdasher from Yonkers?"
How about: "Was the defendant's response to being assaulted reasonable given her age and her status as a battered gay female Unitarian haberdasher with a lisp from Yonkers?"
How about: "Was the defendant's response to being assaulted reasonable given her age and her status as a battered gay female Unitarian haberdasher with a lisp living in Yonkers public housing?"

"It doesn't matter what I think, ask me a legal question!"

Jursidictions will come to different conclusions and my sentiment (or yours) about what's in and what's out can be expect to run the gamut from "this this awesome" to "this is the opposite of awesome" but is irrelevant.

What's important to understand is:
the reasoning for the standard that is set,
what benefits the jurisdiction hopes to gain,
to what extent are those benefits attained or not,
and at what price.






(I didn't come up with any of these ideas but what I wrote is my own digestion of the course materials. I probably should put some citations and after I take LARC I promise that I will put them in.)